LeetCode 435. Non-overlapping Intervals

Problem Statement

Given a collection of intervals, find the minimum number of intervals you need to remove to make the rest of the intervals non-overlapping.

Note:

1. You may assume the interval’s end point is always bigger than its start point.
2. Intervals like [1,2] and [2,3] have borders “touching” but they don’t overlap each other.

Example 1:

Input: [ [1,2], [2,3], [3,4], [1,3] ]

Output: 1

Explanation: [1,3] can be removed and the rest of intervals are non-overlapping.

Example 2:

Input: [ [1,2], [1,2], [1,2] ]

Output: 2

Explanation: You need to remove two [1,2] to make the rest of intervals non-overlapping.

Example 3:

Input: [ [1,2], [2,3] ]

Output: 0

Explanation: You don't need to remove any of the intervals since they're already non-overlapping.

Solution

Tags: Greedy.

# Definition for an interval.
# class Interval(object):
#     def __init__(self, s=0, e=0):
#         self.start = s
#         self.end = e

class Solution(object):
    def eraseOverlapIntervals(self, intervals):
        """
        :type intervals: List[Interval]
        :rtype: int
        """
        if not intervals:
            return 0

        res = 0    
        intervals.sort(key=lambda interval: interval.end)
        cur_end = intervals[0].end
        for i in xrange(1, len(intervals)):
            if intervals[i].start >= cur_end:
                cur_end = intervals[i].end
            else:
                res += 1
        return res

Complexity analysis:

• Time complexity: $O(nlog(n))$, where $n$ is the number of intervals.
• Space complexity: $O(1)$

More concise solution below:

# Definition for an interval.
# class Interval(object):
#     def __init__(self, s=0, e=0):
#         self.start = s
#         self.end = e

class Solution(object):
    def eraseOverlapIntervals(self, intervals):
        """
        :type intervals: List[Interval]
        :rtype: int
        """
        res = 0    
        intervals.sort(key=lambda interval: interval.end)
        cur_end = float('-inf')
        for i in xrange(len(intervals)):
            if intervals[i].start >= cur_end:
                cur_end = intervals[i].end
            else:
                res += 1
        return res